


star blazin'

by baechuzz



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Treasure Planet Fusion, Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten is a Tease, Enemies, Explosions, Inspired by Treasure Planet (2002), M/M, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Swords, royal guard kun, thief ten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28881402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baechuzz/pseuds/baechuzz
Summary: Kun, the Royal Guard, patrolling Starlight, the majestic ship swimming among the sweet ripples of the stars, thinks life would be a little simpler if the thief trying to rob the ship wasn’t a flirty bastard.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52
Collections: Challenge #4 — Awaken The World





	star blazin'

Kun looked at the endless sea of stars and felt the promise of the medal of valour etched to his chest, felt the little pin of the medal prickling his skin already.

"Thinking of your promotion _again_?"

Kun twirled around, caught off-guard. Doyoung's face came into view, his wide toothy smile and smug face. Kun immediately straightened his back, drawing to his full height and nodded his head.

"Captain," he greeted. "I was not!"

"Your tail was wiggling," Doyoung said, amused. He stood next to Kun, looking out at the stars. Contrary to Kun, he could read them like a map; their soft glows were pinpoints of their journey. He bumped their shoulders together, a friendly move not matching the differences in their ranks. "Some guard you are, daydreaming while others are working."

Kun glanced at him, the captain of the famous _Starlight_ , the future Queen's favourite ship. Kun understood why the Princess took a liking in it – it swayed smoothly in the air; the bellied body solid against the wind. Kim Doyoung, too young to be the captain of such a beauty but talented enough to grip onto his position, was Kun's classmate when they were only children.

Pretending to inspect every single board, Kun jutted his chin out. "I'm checking the ship for anything unusual. You know, the devil never sleeps."

"Alright." Doyoung pulled his eyebrows up. He squinted over the handrails, at the grunting and yelling workers. "In an hour, my people finish the loading, and then we can leave."

"And the coronation jewellery?" Kun whispered. The secret cargo, which hid in the Captain's office in a safe. The diamonds belonged to generations of Kings and Queens and now to the new inheritor of the throne. Kun was one of the Royal Guards entrusted with the safekeeping of the priceless jewellery, to deliver them to the Princess. Secrecy was key – the official ship carrying the jewels, the red herring, was already en route, protected by the rest of the Guards.

 _Starlight_ , however majestic, fell short to the huge ornate ship attracting everyone's attention. Right now, it was only a regular cargo ship, carrying the essentials for the celebration.

A warm hand gripped his shoulder, trying to ease his nervousness. " _Still_ in a safe place. Kun, this is the safest ship—”

A loud bang cut him off and they both whipped their heads toward the noise. Screams echoed in the almost empty docks, alarming them of something odd happening there. Kun's hand unconsciously flew to the hilt of his cutlass and rushed, with Doyoung in tow, to the side to peek over the handrails toward the docks.

"What is _that_?" Kun yelled, seeing a solar surfer soar high above the ship and dive down in a perfectly vertical, neck-breaking angle toward the decks. He wanted to close his eyes, to avoid seeing the crash but he held on – but the anticipated collision against the boards never came. The solar surfer angled itself just when it was about to collide, and the hand of its rider graced the deck, leaving something on the ground. The rider looked up and it seemed like, behind his cat mask, his smiling eyes met with Kun's. Kun's mouth parted to say something before Doyoung's body collapsed against his and his shout of ' _Get down!_ ' hit his ears.

 _Starlight_ shook with the strength of the explosion, making them roll and hit the handrails. Pain bloomed in his shoulder, but the excited yells ignited a wave of steady burning anger inside him, and he pried his eyes open. A few other masked solar surfers appeared on the starry sky, circling like hungry vultures over the remnants of the once-proud ship, whose decks suffered a gash-like collapse. Kun winced as he stood up, looking down at Doyoung – his friend fainted. After checking him for injuries and having found none, he let out a quiet breath of relief.

"Jackpot!"

Kun turned toward the joyous hoot coming from the Captain's cabin.

He paled. _The coronation jewellery_.

Gritting his teeth, his ears perking up with the deep surging fury, he took his cutlass out of its sheath and rushed over to the crate. He glanced up toward the solar surfers above him, but they were too busy trying to push each other off their vehicle to notice him. He silently jumped into the destroyed fragments of the cabin, where he found one thief squatting and calmly turning the combination dial, his cat mask pushed on the top of his head. He didn't look up at Kun's footsteps.

"Yangyang? Come and help, I can't freaking guess the code,” he whined, thumping the safe with his fist. "Open, please? Open sesame? Oh, _come on_!"

Kun grabbed and threw the cat mask-wearing stranger to the wall, wincing inwardly at the loud thud. But he had no remorse for a thief, not when his friend was lying unconscious, and the future Queen's favourite ship was in shambles because of him. Also, the medal of valour that was almost in his hands seemed to evaporate from between his fingers. The thief's feline eyes blinked at him, unfazed by the rough welcoming.

"Oh? Well, well, well. I haven't anticipated having a company. Where were they hiding you?" He flashed a quick smile, all pearly white teeth that seemed to unfurl even more ferocity in Kun. He slowly lifted his cutlass to get information out of him when the thief's eyes flicked down at his hand. After a quick once over, and an appreciative hum, he mused, "A royal guard, _here_. How wonderful. I see there were some miscalculations on our side."

A furrow creased between Kun's brows as he tilted his head in confusion. He only realized that the last sentences weren't meant for him when the cold barrel of a Flintlock Pistol pressed to his temple.

"Sorry, Boss," a sheepish voice said behind him. The barrel dug into his skin hard. “I thought I saw him boarding the _Opera_. My bad."

The cat masked thief groaned, jerking a finger behind him. "And the safe?"

Kun, taking advantage of that neither of the two paid him any attention, peeked back to see another thief wearing a sheep mask, the mask concealing a brash youth. He shrugged, slightly lowering the pistol – and Kun wondered, how the hell these space pirates managed to even get to the point to blew _Starlight_ up with their managerial problems.

"The safe was Xiaojun's task."

The leader of the group rubbed his forehead, and Kun felt vaguely bad for him. He tried to shake Kun's hands off and sidestep him, but Kun grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back to the wall. Immediately the pistol was back on his temple, yet a small snicker sounded from the boy holding it.

"What do you think, where are you going?" Kun demanded. The thief looked blatantly at his face, holding up his chin high. He was a bit smaller than Kun, but the way he carried himself made Kun want to cover, to flatten his ears and tuck his tail under himself – a bad habit he forcefully tried to conquer. But the thief saw the small tremble of his ears. He reached up and playfully tugged at one.

"This obviously won't work right now. We need a serious," he narrowed his eyes at the sheep-masked boy, " _regrouping_. Yangyang, if you might."

Yangyang clicked the cock of the gun in place. Kun felt the raging storm of anger in him as he slowly peeled his fingers off the thief, unable to do anything else against the two. The leader watched it with an infuriating amount of self-satisfaction. He quickly rounded Kun, his movements graceful and flowing for a mere human being, but before he left, he'd patted Kun's cheek.

"The name's Ten, by the way," he purred. "See you later, pretty boy."

***

Doyoung let out a contented sigh beside him and Kun eyed him warily. The bruises on his face were blooming with deep blue and lilac, but his gummy smile shone through the pain.

"Why are you so happy? You've just got your ship blown up."

"Yeah, that's sad. But look what I'm captaining now. The _Luna_ ," Doyoung said with the giddiness of a child. "This is the best day of my life. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have to check the map."

Kun decided not to disagree. As far as Doyoung was happy about the turn of events, he had no right to debate with him. _Luna_ was also a beautiful ship, made for the return of the new Queen. But at the same time, the majestic exterior brought the unwanted attention of space pirates and guards were far and near not enough for that.

Four hooligans and the plan was already out of track.

Kun tried to calm his mind by just closing his eyes and losing himself in the slight swaying of the ship in the sky. Time was an odd thing here. Hours after the supposed boarding time, it seemed like they got into a vacuum – the light didn’t ebb and flow, helping in grasping the daytime. In the Etherium, the air seemed crisper than on the planets. The vessel rode the Current, peacefully. Doyoung only needed to pay attention to the small islands in their way. A tiny piece of calmness before the possible trouble.

When he opened his eyes again, a pink blob appeared right in front of him. Then another one.

"What the hell," Kun said, swatting the flying space goos away. "Go away!"

But they refused to budge, inching closer until they both snuggled close to Kun's neck. The feeling was odd, the goos were warm and weirdly dry, but it was not an unwelcome feeling. Just _whose_ were these blobs?

"I see you got intimate with Louis and Leon," Ten's voice came from behind him, and Kun twirled around, his breath caught in his lungs. The thief hopped off the solar surfer, his feet not making any sound against the hardboard. “Not everyone can say that.”

"What? What are you? You were just—”

Ten raised a brow, his smug expression telling how thoroughly he enjoyed this. "Eloquent, I see. It’s okay, I’m smart for the both of us."

Ten was alone. Kun's hand immediately flew to his cutlass, an opportunity to recover his lost pride, but his fingers gripped into nothingness. He caught his eyes to the sheath, which hung around his hips, sad and empty.

“Are you looking for this?”

He pulled Kun’s cutlass out from behind his back, twirling it to show off. Kun didn’t know how this single human being could annoy him so much simply by breathing but here he was, a bright smile carved on his face as he taunted Kun. Ten slowly walked closer to him, a finger running on Kun’s shoulders – the light touch creating goosebumps on his skin.

Ten was close. He was alone in the middle of the enemy's territory – it would be easy to take him out. Ten seemed to be easy on his feet, but Kun was trained in close combat. Yet, he held still, and let Ten slip gradually closer until all he could see was his mischievous dark eyes staring back at him.

“Why are you here?” Kun whispered.

“For the same thing I was before,” Ten answered, his eyes flickering down to Kun’s lips. Kun slowly moved his hand to where the cutlass hung in Ten’s hand, ready to snatch it in a moment of inattentiveness. “You were an uncalculated factor but not an undesirable one. Now we just have to see if there are more things we should know about.”

“ _We_?”

With a flick of his wrist, the blade was pressed to Kun’s throat, a manic smile spreading over Ten’s lips.

“Yes. Haven’t you noticed?” He jerked his head toward the end of the deck where all the sailors huddled together, mouths gagged, legs and wrists tied together. Clean work. Yangyang, the sheep-masked teen holding a Laser Musket, waved upon noticing the attention on him. “New ship, new layout. We ought to have some information about it – but ah, here they are.”

Two masked pirates stumbled out of the Captain’s cabin, and immediately, a laser strip blared past them.

“What happened?” Ten yelled at them, and the press of the blade against Kun’s neck slowly eased.

One tore his mask off, pointing harshly toward Doyoung’s emerging form.

“ _He_ happened!”

Kun couldn’t snuff the smile growing on his lips – blowing up _Starlight_ was one thing, attempting to rob Doyoung from captaining _Luna_ was another. They’d reached his tipping point. With a crazed look, he targeted one of the thieves with his Laser Musket but missed him. They jumped on their solar surfers, leaving the decks in the blink of an eye. Doyoung turned toward Kun, his eyes glinting with a manic look and the Laser Musket pointed at Ten beside him.

“I would give up,” Kun commented, amusement lacing his voice. “He’s not joking.”

He should’ve known better than letting himself feel foolishly relieved because Ten swiftly got behind him, the cutlass once again held to his throat. Kun gulped. He saw hesitance in Doyoung’s eyes as he lowered the weapon.

“Sorry for the inconvenience but I’m not in the mood to be blown up.” Ten whispered into his ear, slowly backing toward the handrails. Just in time as Doyoung charged ahead, the press ceased. Kun turned around to see as Ten jumped over the handrails, into the abyss of space.

“Ten—”

Ten’s head bobbed up, a smug smile on his lips. He reached out to rub gently at the red skin on Kun’s throat, drawing his finger up to push his chin up, closing his open mouth. Suddenly a laser strip blared past them, and Ten pulled away.

“It’s my cue to leave. Qian Kun, it was a pleasure.”

“Not so fast,” someone said beside them and grabbed Ten’s shirt to haul him back on the ship. The attacker was one of the newly freed sailors, who rushed to get back to the group of thieves. The blind anger-induced strength of the sailor surprised both of them, and Ten collapsed on the deck like a ragdoll. Kun’s cutlass cluttered on the hardboard loudly. Ten got on his feet, reaching for the weapon but he seemed unbalanced by the unexpected attack and the sailor pushed him away from the cutlass, pulling out his long sword.

Kun saw it happen in slow motion. As the sneering sailor drove closer to Ten with his sword, Ten quickly fidgeted for his small handgun peeking out of his boots, something akin to fear flashing through his face. Kun saw the sailor reeling in his obvious advantage, blinded with the hope of saving the day and serving revenge in the name of the new Queen.

His body moved unconsciously toward the pair, watching as the sailor became careless with his sword, his moves were becoming wilder and more aggressive each time Ten bucked under his attack, gradually cornering Ten to the handrails of the ship.

He saw before it happened. He saw the sailor pushing his blade ahead, aiming for Ten's throat. With a sharp motion, Ten jerked back. The strength of the motion tipped him over the handrails, and now, no solar surfer was waiting for him – and Kun reached for him and grabbed his hand just in time.

Ten hung above the abyss of stars, his legs dangling in nothingness. For a moment, Kun thought about letting him go. The shouts of the sailors surrounding them were harsh and encouraging, chanting for him to get rid of the burden, to free the nation of one of the many pirates. Kun gritted his teeth, his fingers slipping on Ten’s skin and he had to make the call.

“I see you're thinking,” Ten yelled at him. “Not a great time for that.”

“Shut!” Kun grunted through his teeth and yanked him up. “ _Up_!”

The intensity of the pull added with Ten’s weight pushed Kun off-balance, and they tumbled on the floor. Kun winced, amidst the fall he knocked his head to hardboard, but suddenly cold fingers sneaked between his curls to scratch the back of his ear.

“You saved me,” Ten said with awe, lying on top of Kun. “Don’t you want me to die?”

Kun pushed himself up, making Ten roll off of him, warm gathering in his cheeks. He grabbed for his cutlass. “I want to kill you myself.”

“How romantic,” Ten sighed with a besotted expression on his face. “But as I can see, you have to stand in a queue.”

The sailors, headed by Doyoung, were surrounding them, growing more agitated by each passing second. Kun felt the anger oozing off of them and felt his own stomach drop. But not Ten – he stood up, dusted off his pants and hoisted Kun up as well.

“While your deed was heroic, it was unnecessary,” Ten announced, patting Kun’s chest. The other thieves levitated on their surfers, holding a Laser Musket each, pointing at the roaring crowd. “My boys have my back.”

He stepped on the handrail, ready to jump and be caught, but not before turned back to Kun to say his farewell.

"Maybe next time, Qian Kun," Ten purred, the syllables rolling off his tongue mercilessly. "It'd been fun."

"But you've never got what you wanted.”

"Have I not?" Ten's mouth curved up, mischief dancing in his eyes. He leaned down to Kun's eye level and kissed him on the cheek. In the corner of his eye, Kun saw Ten holding up something that reflected the starlight, and he gasped, immediately reaching for it, but Ten was quicker – he let himself fall back, and he yelled, "Goodbye. _For now_."


End file.
